The Touch of Sound
by NyxOutofChaos
Summary: Shepard is selected for an experimental program intended to make alien communication easier. It turns out to be anything but easy for everyone involved.
1. Chapter 1

Hi all. This is the very first work that I've ever published. I almost didn't put it up, but I thought "what the heck". Spoilers of course for Mass Effect 2 and 3. Please be gentle with me, though feedback is absolutely welcome.

I don't own the game, EA does. I'm not getting any money for this, just entertainment.

Chapter 1

Shepard stood before the Council, unease rolling in her stomach. Facing them always did this to her, but today seemed to hold a special depth of nerve wracking.

Anderson stood stiff and nervous. He almost seemed... apologetic. Tevos, the Asari matriarch councilor next to him looked upon Shepard with her usual remote aloofness. The Salarian council member, Valern, seemed almost gleeful, and the Turian councilor, Sparatus, looked like he was about to murder someone. Of course, he always seemed enraged when addressing Shepard, but this was a new depth.

Being a tried and true soldier, none of her misgivings translated to her expression, and Shepard simply snapped them a respectful steel-spine salute.

The matriarch inclined her head and said in her normal silky detached voice "Commander, thank you for joining us on such short notice."

Shepard had been annoyed at said short notice, and their demand that she drag the Normandy all the way back to Citadel space, but she said nothing.

Councilor Tevos continued after only a momentary hesitation. "It has come to our attention that inter-species relations are becoming a critical issue after recent attempts to integrate crews have yielded... less than perfect results." She paused and arched a too-perfect sapphire brow. "Indeed, it would seem that other commanders are having significantly less success than yourself at leading diverse teams."

Shepard quashed her urge to shrug self-consciously and instead replied in an even tone "I have a good crew. The best. "

The matriarch councilor nodded her head with the infinite grace inherent to her species, and continued: "That may be part of your success, but not all. We have decided to run an experimental initiative that may assist future captains in leading their crew." She then looked over at Councilor Valern, who's glee seemed to escalate.

He (or was it she? Shepard could never tell Salarian gender) cleared his throat and said animatedly, "Yes, yes we have developed new technology. Technology that makes all methods of communication apparent across species. Auditory, visual, and other forms of speech are often completely lost upon many, especially humans. We wish to test the enhancements. Test how they boost and aid commanders of diverse crews."

Shepard blinked in confusion as she met the Salarian's councilor's dark liquid gaze. Sensing her imminent interruption, he forged ahead with the dizzying verbal speed inherent to his kind

"You are the most successful commander, your crew respects you. Very unlikely to produce interspecies tension by expanding your perceptive abilities. As your crew lacks Hanar or Elcor, it is unnecessary for you to be implanted with visual or olfactory aids. Yet you are a prime candidate to field test our audio aid given that your crew includes Drell, Krogan, and most importantly, Turian members.

At this, Councilor Sparatus seemed unable to keep his angry silence, and sputtered an interruption. "I must repeat my strong disagreement with this experiment. A human cannot possibly comprehend the full range of speech for my species. It is a waste of time and money".

Councilor Valern cut him off with an unusual show of dismissal. "It has already been decided by majority." This caused the Councilor Sparatus to tighten his mandibles so close to his face that Shepard wondered if they hurt from the pressure.

The Salarian turned to look at Shepard again and his voice regained its excited tones " We have sent the implant to Dr. Solus. He alone will know of its presence so that he can track your health and integration of the device. We ask that you keep its existence a secret from your crew, at least for a short while. Valuable data can be gained by tracking crew vocalizations before and after knowledge of the device."

Shepard cut Anderson a silent expression for help, but was only met with an apologetic frown from him. He was clearly uncomfortable with the project, but didn't oppose it. She was screwed and she knew that objecting would only be childish at this point. And if there was one thing Shepard never did, it was cry and moan over the cards dealt to her.

With an indrawn breath of misgiving, Shepard straightened and cut another salute "Yes, Counselors."


	2. Chapter 2

The fun and games continues. As always, I don't own the characters or setting.

Chapter 2

Jade Shepard was not in a good mood when she returned to the Normandy. Here she was, hip-deep in solving the galaxy's problems and fighting the Reaper threat, and the Council wanted to use her as a guinea pig? Typical. Her life seemed doomed to be filled with ever increasing complications.

The crew seemed to sense her black mood, and found ways to make themselves scarce. Even yeoman Chambers didn't stop her to announce new messages at her terminal. Shepard could count the number of times her over-eager yeoman had skipped that particular duty on one hand.

Shepard stepped into Mordin's lab with a scowl and a stormy expression. When he looked up with a startled and curious expression, she pressed her lips together and stopped stiffly in front of his terminal. "Let's get this over with. Give me the implant."

Mordin blinked too-large eyes and she could swear he was amused. "Certainly Commander. I have compiled files of common species vocalizations you are likely to encounter. Very excited to be a part of such a useful experiment. You may experience slight disorientation with the extra auditory input, but human minds are known for plasticity and adaptation. Speculation: perhaps due to depth of genetic variety."

Rolling her shoulders against tension, Shepard stepped out of the way from the steel bed that emerged from the nearby wall, then hopped up onto it once it clicked into place. "Just put it in. I'm only going to participate for the minimum time the Council cited, then I want it out."

Mordin blinked disappointedly at her lack of zeal for science, then approached with a swab and a small round piece of technology that could only be the implant. She hadn't even noticed it on his desk, it was so small. It reminded her of an ancient earth listening device designed to go undetected.

After carefully sterilizing her right ear, he delicately used a pair of forceps to place the implant a small way inside her ear canal. "Prepare for momentary discomfort, Commander."

She opened her mouth to clarify what he meant when the implant _moved_.

It seemed to rotate, then suddenly pain speared her at multiple points in her ear as spines pierced through skin. She felt three points of fire as spines traveled back towards the opening of her ear canal, then emerged behind the shell of her ear and anchored themselves in place, while another moved in the opposite direction, and speared into her eardrum. It was excruciating, and she vaguely heard someone violently cursing in several languages. After a moment of disorientation, she realized it was her.

"Goddammit Mordin! What the hell is it doi..." She was suddenly silenced by an overwhelming wall of sound that thrummed through her. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, and she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut against the sensory feed.

Mordin seemed to instantly realize the source of her distress, and quickly reached behind her ear, tapping at one of the spine terminus points that had emerged. Immediately the sound faded to tolerable levels, though the thrum continued. He set about swabbing away the trickles of blood that were seeping from them as he explained: "Theorizing that you are experiencing the sound of the ship for the first time. Studies suggest that human hearing only captures 12 to 20 Hertz of sound. Many sounds lost on humans. Not so with this device. Tap here to decrease implant feed, and here to increase"

His fingers tapped the topmost terminus bud and middle respective to his explanation. She grit her teeth and resisted the urge to rub her ear as the pain of the implant faded bit by bit. "And how do I turn it off?"

Mordin simply tapped the lowest bud in demonstration, and the sound cut out completely. Shepard had time for a brief sigh of relief before he tapped it again, returning the thrum of the ship.

Shepard rubbed her forehead to try to stall the stress headache she could feel growing, and she hopped off the table. She had to suppress a wince when she noticed that she had accidentally gripped the edge too hard and left dents behind. She was still getting used to her new enhanced body, and lapses like this embarrassed her. "Thanks Mordin. I'd love to stay and talk, but I have a ton of work to catch up on."

His expression suddenly shifted to what she knew was disapproval for his kind, and he shook his head "Do not recommend return to duty. Rest in order to let brain settle into processing new data."

Shepard snorted and settled for rubbing the prominent mastoid bone behind her ear, rather than irritating the terminal buds nestled next to it. "Sleep, with this new set of piercings? Not a chance."

Without waiting to hear what else he had to say, she turned on her heel, and exited as quickly as she could from the lab. It made her uncomfortable that a crew member had seen her in pain. Even the doctor should be able to maintain the illusion that his commanding officer was invincible.

She paused at the command center, then made a concerted effort to square her shoulders and return back to the galaxy map. The universe wasn't interested in waiting until she didn't have an ear-ache.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

It had been a long shift, and Shepard had yet to complete her night rounds before retiring. She leaned her hip against the railing at the map console for a brief moment, then shook her head at herself before pushing off and resolutely heading for the elevator. Yeoman Chambers remained uncharacteristically quiet, which was a blessing.

She started with the bottom of her ship, as was her habit. Her feet followed a well worn path through the doors of engineering.

As the doors whisked open to engineering proper, her ear with the implant vibrated achingly, then delivered a punch of noise that briefly disoriented her enough to stop her in her tracks.

Rubbing at her bone again, Shepard looked around for the source of the sound, unsurprised when she pinpointed the culprit to be the engine straight ahead. The deep thrum she'd heard before from the ship was magnified and many times more intense here at the source. Shepard needed to distract herself before the temptation to turn off her implant overrode her stubborn need to master and control her own actions. She would not fail this mission simply because it was uncomfortable.

Nearby and oblivious to Shepard's momentary halt, Tali's frame was rigid as she leaned over the console. Something was obviously bothering her as she punched the icons with a little too much force. Shepard cleared her throat, and Tali turned to look at her in surprise. "Commander! I'm sorry, is it already the end of the day? I must have lost track of time looking at this accursed drive modification."

Shepard came to stand next to her, and blindly eyed the console, unable to focus through the noise enough to actually read it. "Is everything alright?"

Tali shook her hooded head, and a glint of narrowed frustrated eyes flashed through her faceplate. "With the ship? Yes. With the upgrade schematics for the drive we recently acquired from Ilium? No."

As Tali spoke, the thrum of the engine seemed to oppress Shepard's mind more and more. She knew logically that it was the same volume, but it's grind against her conscious mind was becoming harder to ignore with each moment.. Shepard came back to herself when she felt a familiar three-fingered hand delicately touch her shoulder.

"Commander? Are you all right?"

Shepard couldn't conceal a wince. Her primitive brain screamed at her that she should be running the hell away from the huge incessant thrum sounding off in front of her face. "I...I'm sorry. I know you'll make sense of the schematics, you always do. I um... I'll leave you to it."

She about-faced on her heel, and rubbed at her mastoid bone again as she made an uncharacteristic retreat. Tali watched her go with a lost expression. She had no idea what had just happened, but noticed how distracted and stressed Shepard was. "I...alright, Commander."

Back in the engineering hall, Shepard took a moment to sigh in relief from the lessening of sound, then faced towards the cargo bay, where Grunt was holed up. No sense in delaying the inevitable.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

As Shepard stepped into the cargo hold, a deep thrum that was somewhat similar to the ship's noise vibrated her sternum. Since only Grunt came down here, he had to be the source of the noise.

Shepard walked into the hold proper, and gave a tight smile to the Krogan. She was careful not to show teeth, as his species generally tended to take that as an invitation to fight.

"Grunt, how are things going?"

Said Krogan cut off his grumbling thrum, then looked at her curiously. "Nothing new, Shepard. Unless you need something killed?" The hopeful note to his voice used to bother her, but now she only shook her head in amusement.

"No, we're still between systems."

Grunt drew his great plated and scaly brows together, and looked confused. "I already told you about potential upgrades and tank data."

Knowing that she was pushing the limits of Krogan social mixing, Shepard inclined her head. "Yes, just doing the rounds and checking on the crew. Keep ready, I may need you on the next mission."

This seemed to soothe him, and he nodded as much as his massive thick neck would allow. With the return of his confidence, his chest emanated the thrum again. It seemed that contented or focused Krogan just made that noise. Maybe it was their version of humming to themselves. Who knew.

Relieved that for once her new auditory abilities didn't lead to pain, Shepard nodded and left without any further words. Sometimes it was good to have crew members not inclined towards a lot of talking.

Her next few stops were blessedly free of crewmembers who were capable of producing or stood in proximity to implant-shaking sounds. She could tell that she had confused the hell out of Jack and Zaeed with her relief and returning spirits. They were used to their presence causing consternation, even against Shepard's almost infinite reserves of patience with people. To have her lingering and even smiling in relief while they slung crude quips at her was visibly putting them off their game.

She couldn't really justify spending too much time with them, however, and she had to leave the oasis of auditory calm they provided in order to continue on to the mess hall.

One short elevator ride later, she snagged some food from Sergeant Gardner (who was still embarrassingly vocal about his gratitude for the ingredients she brought him), and sat down amongst her crew. She noted absently that she was given an unconscious wide berth by them. While she knew it was out of respect, she couldn't help once again feeling a bit lonely and out of place.

Shepard had only a moment to complete her wistful thought before the ship's resident Drell seemed to appear out of thin air in the chair directly across from her. "Commander".

She locked her muscles so as not to jump at his sudden appearance. It was a bit of a game between them. Thane would try to startle her with his uncanny ability to ghost around unnoticed, and she would pretend that she was the unshakable Commander. From the mischievous glint in his dark eyes, she knew he enjoyed it.

Shepard nodded her head to him, then gave him a wry lopsided smile, "Thane. It's good to see you out of Life Support."

She would have gone on, but she was rendered speechless as he suddenly started to emanate a strange rasping buzz that started in high pitch, then shifted to low. She stopped eating and just stared, having no idea what had just happened.

Thane blinked at her startled expression, and the sound stopped. Shepard noticed that his throat shrank fractionally with the cessation of sound, and realized that she'd seen his throat move like that quite a bit. He'd been making sounds she couldn't hear this whole time, and she didn't even catch on. It was one thing to academically know that you were missing out on a common occurrence, and it was quite another to actually be confronted with it.

At her continued examination, Thane leaned forward and asked in concern. "Siha, are you well? Did I do something to upset you?"

Shepard shook her head and unconsciously rubbed behind her ear again. "What? No! No... I... I'm sorry Thane. I was remembering something."

Shepard felt like a massive heel for trying to distract a Drell via pretending to be lost in memory. It was a low blow, and she knew it.

However, Thane seemed somewhat mollified by her explanation, and focused on his food, occasionally making high pitched clicks of sound as he found morsels that were apparently to his liking.

Concentrating on trying to behave normally, Shepard tucked into her own food, and ate with unusual speed before making excuses about private messages and fleeing the mess hall.


	5. Chapter 5

Don't own the characters, just having fun with them, as usual. Feedback is appreciated and welcome. Thanks for reading.

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Chapter 5

Shepard cursed her own cowardice even while she sagged against the door inside her room in relief. She had felt awful, invading a crewmember's privacy. Sure he'd been in public, and the sub-vocals probably meant nothing, but she couldn't sit there another minute.

She hauled herself upright, and tapped the bottom terminal bud behind her ear, turning it off for the night. She reasoned that the Council couldn't possibly want her to develop insomnia from the device, and that there wasn't any aliens to talk to here.

Shepard shucked her clothes and frowned at herself as she turned on her shower. As usual, her mind never gave her the mercy of ignoring hard-to-take thoughts, and turned to the crew members she'd skipped seeing on her rounds tonight.

She reasoned that it wasn't just one member that didn't get personal attention on her night rounds, but she knew she was lying to herself if she didn't admit (at least silently) that she'd completely wimped out of seeing one in particular.

Garrus.

Shepard groaned and buried her face into her braced forearms against the shower wall. She let the water course over her back as if it could carry away her shame.

The truth of the matter was that the Council couldn't have picked a worse form of torture for her. Her closest and most trusted friend had a voice that made her weak in the knees. His duel toned words always seemed to flow around her like a caress. It was rough, but silken at the same time. She could listen to him all day.

Just a small fraction of his voice tightened places on her body that she'd struggled to ignore. It wasn't right for a commanding office to ask for relations with a subordinate. It was amoral, stupid, and ... and all of that went out of her mind completely when his voice dipped into his signature purring chuckle.

Well... except when he talked and cleaned his gun at the same time. Watching his hands move with such precision and attention while he spoke in that voice... Shepard mentally smacked herself and pushed off the shower wall. She hissed "Goddammit" to herself, and recriminated her body with a harsh utilitarian scrub to finish cleaning as quickly as possible.

After a cursory and hurried dry-off with the towel, she slipped into her sleepwear with a grateful sigh. Maybe other girls liked to wear frilly and silky items to bed, but she'd take a tank top and yoga pants any day. It may have something to do with her early military training, where everyone bunked in the same room. Or it may have something to do with the fact that at any moment the ship could need her for an emergency at the command center without the luxury of a change into uniform.

Shepard thumped gracelessly into bed and stared at the dull metal of the sealed windows above. Any other captain would give a limb to have such a glorious view of the stars right above their beds and would probably keep the armored plates open 24 hours a day to gaze at them.

Not her. It only took one time of forgetting to close them, and waking up to the sight of that terrifying emptiness reaching for her. She'd had serious problems breathing, remembering the pitiless cold clawing at her, lungs screaming for air until they felt molten, and the indescribably horrific pain of her body trying to equalize with the lack of pressure in space.

No, space had left a mark on her, and she couldn't look it in the eyes anymore. So the shields stayed shut.

Shepard gave herself a scornful smile as she realized that her flashback had chased out her earlier inappropriate musings. Good. She was no use to anyone like that. The crew, and hell, the universe needed her to be unassailable, calm, and in control. Maybe she'd put in a heavy workout in the gym tomorrow to convince her body to stow it's demands in other areas. One could only hope.

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Garrus woke early, rolling out of his cot in the Main Battery with a tired groan. He'd stayed up late running what he called 'calibrations' on the guns again. Despite all the ribbing from the crew, he didn't elaborate what said calibrations really entailed because he enjoyed the banter.

He went over to the main console and eyed the most recent battle simulation he'd been running. Since joining the crew, he'd become obsessed with trying to configure the guns to respond to any situation possible. Even what would normally be crippling damage. If he could code in a custom subroutine to smoothly switch power over to undamaged components in a fight, it might mean the difference between losing and winning. It might mean the difference between losing _her_ again.

Garrus shook his head and clicked with irritation at himself, curling his right three-talons into a loose fist on the console. He couldn't afford to think like that. He didn't have the _right_ to think like that.

With a sigh chased by a sub harmonic inflection for long-suffering worry, he pushed away from the console and headed for the Mess Hall. He wanted to see if he could catch a moment with the Commander before their shifts started. She hadn't swung by last night before shift end, and that usually meant she'd run herself into exhaustion. It worried him when she did that.

Stepping out of the battery, Garrus rumbled a 'good morning' to Mess Sergeant Gardner, hoping that they weren't down to ration paste yet. He admired how much Gardner had adapted to making Dextro-amino foods, but no artistry could make ration paste more palatable.

Fortunately this morning he had some cured Kyroc meat available. Pleasing striations of bluish purple ran through the cross-section, hinting of a creature that was native to his world of blue-blooded life. He turned and looked up from his tray to glance over the mess hall, sub-vocalizing relief at seeing her hunched form at one of the tables.

He approached with his usual cautious military stoicism.

"Good morning, Commander."

Shepard froze, and looked up at him with an expression he couldn't read. Human faces cycled through emotion so quickly that sometimes Garrus despaired at ever being able to read them.

Tone of voice, however, was his species' specialty. And she said in a downright strangled tone, "Garrus. Good morning. Um... sorry I didn't check in last night."

Garrus' eyes narrowed as he took in her stiff posture and unwillingness to meet his gaze with her own. Something was wrong. She almost was acting like a...prey species. His Commander _never _behaved in that way. Hell, he'd seen her maintain steely eye contact with charging Krogan, never flinching on their missions. She'd grinned almost ferally into the face of impossible battles, and moved like liquid graceful vengeance towards the enemy. It caused no end of consternation and admiration in him to see her hurtling like a human-shaped fist into fights, only pausing long enough to let him snipe anything on her six before dominating the field like a... well, like a spirit of war.

In fact, he supposed that given her sheer indomitable will and force of presence, it was inevitable that he begin to develop more than just respect for her.

For Turian males, there was no piece of clothing, no trick of makeup, and no curve of the body that could intoxicate them more than a dominant female. In fact, unmated female captains were assigned same-gendered crews to prevent chaos from occurring amongst underlings. Their conviction, their very presence and force of will would cause any nearby unmated male to raptly pay attention. Non-dominant and mated females were able to be integrated with a co-ed crew, but never a powerful and dominant unmated woman.

And no woman in the universe was more powerful and dominant than Shepard.

He didn't know when or where it happened, but he was infinitely grateful that humans couldn't hear his involuntary sub-vocalizations when he was near her. From the purring thrum of sexual interest when she put her hands on her hips, to the uneasy growl of worry when she risked herself or did a mission without him, it would have been highly inappropriate. On a Turian ship, there were practically no secrets, as their second voices carried real context and involuntary emotional reactions. It was part of what made the first Turian-Human contact go so disastrously. At first humans seemed so... deceitful. You never knew if they were lying without sub vocals to cue their_ real_ emotions.

With a mental start of surprise, Garrus wondered if humans had trouble trusting Elcor for the same reason.

Brushing aside his mental wanderings, Garrus took a seat opposite of Shepard and eyed her with worry. He was determined to get to the bottom of whatever was bothering her.


	6. Chapter 6

I don't own the characters, yada yada.

This is where things get really uncomfortable for our dear commander.

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Chapter 6

Shepard mentally cursed her luck when Garrus bee-lined for her table. She knew that she was pushing her luck by eating with the crew again, but her nature just wouldn't allow her to concede defeat and hide. She also needed to confront and master her reaction to this new unknown variable in a neutral environment. The last thing that the crew needed was for their commander to freeze up and gawk like an idiot in the middle of a battle.

She had almost convinced herself that she could overcome anything the implant could throw at her when a warm purring pulse of sound enveloped her, announcing Garrus' arrival at the chair across from her. Shepard had to bite her tongue to keep from reacting. The sound he was making was achingly sensuous, as it swirled and eddied around her like water. Jesus, if this was how Turians greeted each other, how did they ever stop screwing and get around to space travel?

Shepard could see Garrus had picked up immediately on her changed posture, and blessedly, he stopped making that horribly wonderful sound that had taken every inch of her steel willpower to pretend she couldn't hear.

She only had a moment to enjoy her victory before he assaulted her with a low throbbing growl. From the expression on his face, she could only assume that this was his way of sub-vocalizing his worry.

Hoping to cut him off, she returned his greeting and quickly apologized for not checking in on him during her rounds. Sensing that she was only increasing his worry, she quickly tried to change the subject. "So, how are the calibrations coming along?"

Garrus was watching her with the intensity he usually only reserved for suspects during his C-Sec days. After a long moment, his mandibles twitched, then pulled in close to his jaw in an expression she knew indicated worry and disapproval for Turians. He did seem willing to let her change the subject though, as he replied, "They... are going well. I appreciate how long you've been letting me spend on them. Our increased battle capacity will make it worthwhile."

Shepard nodded and looked down at her suddenly fascinating meal. "From what you've reported, I agree." She paused to make sure no crewmen were sitting close enough to overhear them, then she leaned forward and said in a lower voice: "So much is riding on us, sometimes I worry that we won't be up for a task this enormous". For a brief moment, all the doubt and strain of having the universe riding on her shoulders flickered across Shepard's eyes, making Garrus buzz his sub vocal worry for her.

As suddenly as the expression came, it was gone; strong-armed by the steel will of the Commander into submission. She straightened and tried to not react to his resumed sub vocalizations. Clearing her throat, Shepard stood up. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but I have a report to write before we next go planet-side. Dust off is at 13:00.

Not letting him get a word in edgewise, she smartly turned on her heel and headed for her cabin, congratulating herself for making it through the conversation without losing her professionalism.

Behind her, Garrus' look of concern was as piercing as his sub vocal buzz.

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Shepard berated herself silently with every step she took away from the mess hall. Stupid, she was so stupid. Right now, her crew needed a rock solid foundation of support in their commander. The very worst thing to do would be to let her personal feelings show, and undermine their morale. And Garrus? That poor man didn't need his commander mooning over him like a child, or sniveling about her doubts. Even if, for some mad reason, they did both agree to fraternize, it would lead to disaster. Female human soldiers instantly lose the respect of their crewman the moment they showed themselves to be a sexual creature.

She shook her head and rubbed her forehead after making sure no one was in the hall to see her. No, she couldn't be anything but unassailable, and inhumanly strong. For just a short insane moment, she somewhat mourned the fact that Cerberus hadn't altered her mind along with her body. It would be nice to not feel doubt and fear for a change. Or to have inappropriate feelings for subordinates.

Shepard took a moment to breathe deeply once she was in the elevator, then squared her shoulders and stepped out onto the bridge. Every inch the professional. Hopefully their next mission would clear her mind.


	7. Chapter 7

I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far. Feedback is always welcome.

None of the characters are mine, of course.

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Chapter 7

The planet was barren of plant and animal life, as usual. Shepard wistfully looked out of the Hammerhead's windows, wishing just for once that they'd find a planet with trees, before she looked back to her crew. Tali and Garrus looked alertly back at her, both worried about the severity of the mission due to Shepard's dark scowl for the entirety of the drop to the planet. Little did they know that it wasn't the mission she was worried about.

Said scowl was mostly due to the fact that Shepard could in no way start excluding Garrus from missions without tipping him off that something had changed. Which led to her enduring the sound of his voice reverberating off of the metal walls of the Hammerhead. Apparently Turians liked to mutter to themselves in sub-vocal levels before missions. It would be better once they got outside. It HAD to be.

She nodded to them and said crisply: "Alright, the distress signal is coming from a mine. Since we have yet to see a mine that wasn't a pit of death and traps, it's best to assume this is as well. I will take point."

She didn't elaborate further, as she knew this team like the back of her hand. They were the best and she trusted them with her life.

Once they set down and all piled out of the vehicle, her sense of foreboding increased as her boots landed in a puff of red dirt. Just for once, she wished that she could ignore her conscience and obviously fake distress signals. With her luck, the one singular time she did so would be the time it was a real signal, and everyone died due to her negligence. Wouldn't Al Jahani love to report about that? Regardless of her misgivings, she signaled the others to follow her, and headed into the belly of the beast.

The door hack was easy enough (really nothing could stand up to Tali's expertise), but as soon as they reached the largest of the mining areas, the husks hit them, crawling out from behind the crates scattered across the room like a mindless blanket of plague.

Shepard hunkered down behind one of said crates, and pulled her shotgun out, sending massive blasts of incendiary rounds into each husk's chest with almost surgical precision. Her armor took most of the brunt of the kickback from the gun, but not all. She ignored the pain, as it was insignificant in the face of dying by the hands of cyber-zombies. She had no need to watch her six, as she always knew Garrus would cover her, and focused on meeting the enemy head on. She was proud of her team. They were from different worlds, but they worked together like a seamless machine.

They methodically fired for what seemed like ages before the numbers of the enemy seemed to thin. She hated husks, as they tended to get up close and personal, though punching them was satisfying at times. Maybe she should let one or two close so she could work off some tension on their freakish hides. Shepard started to relax from her adrenalin surge that helped her focus through fights with crystal clarity, figuring that this was all but wrapped up. Then she heard it.

Garrus made a sudden surprised ream of sound behind her, as if he was being attacked. Her mind went blank and she whirled with her gun up on instinct, ready to shoot a husk off of him. He startled at her unexpected move, in the middle of changing a round out that had jammed his gun, before he made a harsh flange of sound while looking at something over her shoulder.

That was all the warning she got before a cold and pitiless mouth bit down inhumanly hard into her shoulder, crunching the armor and slicing into her flesh. Within seconds, wires and tubes disengaged from the husk and started worming their way into the meat of her arm, searing her nerves with agony. With a harsh shout, Shepard brought her armored fist around to freight train into its skull, crumpling it with an obscene crack and squelch. Her team mates made it to her side and took care of the remaining husks before crouching down to assess the damage.

Shepard clutched at her arm and muttered curses in as many languages as she could thing of while she eased down to the ground via her back to the crate. Her last coherent thought was that Garrus' worried buzz wasn't so distracting when pieces of alien technology were burrowing into her muscle and bone, feeling like acid covered knives under her skin.

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Garrus was panicking as he watched Shepard lose consciousness. Why had she turned to him and left her flank open? Why hadn't he been able to chamber a round faster to cover her? Why had his spirits-be-damned gun jammed?

He scooped her up, and sub vocalized warningly at Tali as she tried to touch Shepard's shoulder to assess the damage. Despite not being able to hear his warning, she seemed to catch on to his body language, and let her hand fall. "Garrus, we need to get her out of here".

He agreed whole-heartedly, and practically ran up the entry ramps of the mine. He briefly marveled at how light Shepard was, given all the damage he knew she was capable of, but then shook his head at himself. They all knew that she was so much more than her species. So much more than any species. It was hard to remember she was a being of flesh and blood, rather than an idea given mortal form. She always had burned so brightly and fiercely. The idea of that light being snuffed out by a disgusting husk was more than he could bear. His chest tightened to the point where he could barely breathe just at the idea of it.

Once they hit the surface, he slapped him com. "Joker! Pick up ASAP! Let Chakwas know that Shepard needs her."

Joker curtly acknowledged him without a single wisecrack, his tension coming through even on the com. Garrus shifted her to a more secure carry position, and growled at his commander: "Hang on Shepard. Stay with me. Please, just stay with me."


	8. Chapter 8

Consciousness came in fits of disorienting sounds, grinding pain, and snatches of conversation. Fighting the darkness with all her will, Shepard hit consciousness like shattering the surface of an icy lake, shocking her lungs into a gasp. She almost hit the figure that held down her shoulders until she focused and realized that it was Chakwas holding her down to a med table.

She licked her cracked lips and managed to croak. "What the hell happened? Is Garrus and Tali ok?"

Chakwas let her go and took a step back, not looking pleased. "They're fine, Commander. Was there a particular reason you decided to let a husk chew on you today?" Shepard took her opportunity to gingerly sit up, noticing that she was in fairly good condition, considering how incredibly stupid and irresponsible she'd been. She had been specifically steeling herself against letting her implant compromise the mission, yet that was exactly what it had done. It was unacceptable.

Shepard tried to move her arm and winced before reaching for her shoulder, shuddering at the memory of wires sliding under her skin. "Not by choice. How'd you get it out? It felt pretty embedded before I lost consciousness."

The good doctor's lips thinned and her expression became hooded, making Shepard nervous. "I didn't remove them. By the time your team got you up here, your implants were already in the process of rejecting the Geth technology."

Rubbing her sore shoulder, Shepard trained her gaze on the floor, trying not to let it show how much that bothered her. Sure she didn't want to become a husk, but hearing that she wasn't human enough to convert into one was disturbing. Cerberus' modifications of her body always bothered her, but most days she could shove the topic from her mind. However, when things like this happened, worries that she wasn't human, or was just an imitation of herself threatened to overwhelm her. Just how much of her body was machine, anyway? She could probably ask to be scanned to find out, but something told her that she didn't really want the answer.

Chakwas seemed to catch on to her state of mind, and cleared her throat. "I also found an unexpected implant in your ear, not a Cerberus piece. Care to explain?"

Shepard experimentally swung her legs around off the bed and was pleased that she wasn't dizzy or weak, though her shoulder still looked like a chewed mess. "It's there by Council order. Just an experiment to see if human crews can integrate with aliens more easily."

This didn't seem to appease the ship's doctor, who frowned in disapproval. "Does the rest of the crew know?"

Somewhat pleased the conversation topic had distracted Chakwas enough to allow her to get out of bed so soon, Shepard tried to stand. "No, but they will. I have it under control." Trying to switch topics, Shepard asked something that didn't make sense to her. "So, if my modifications rejected the husk 'implants', why not the one the council gave me?"

Chakwas shook her head and picked up a scanner, delicately probing the wounded flesh of her arm, assessing it. "I honestly don't know, Commander. Cerberus hasn't been very forthcoming with the details of what they did to you. I suspect it has something to do with the amount of damage you were receiving from the attack. The implants can hardly ignore your arm being chewed on, and an aggressively invasive substance damaging your body. Perhaps a benign object doesn't merit being excommunicated."

None of this improved Shepard's mood, and she pulled away from the probing in order to try to get off the med table.

She suddenly felt a hand on her elbow and looked up to see Chakwas opening her mouth to admonish her. But the older woman seemed to change her mind and sighed in frustration. "I know you won't stay in sick bay, but please rest for at least 24 hours. We don't want your implants to start rupturing your skin again."

Deeply grateful that she hadn't perused the topic, Shepard nodded quickly in agreement. "Of course. Thank you for patching me up".

Taking her opportunity, Shepard slowly left the infirmary, surprised that she had gotten off so easily for once.

Garrus was one frustrated and pissed off Turian. Almost immediately after bringing Shepard to the med bay, he'd been chased out by the formidable Dr. Chakwas. Normally an elderly human wouldn't have intimidated him at all, but every Turian knew better than to upset the ship's doctor. That was a good way to end up with fewer digits than you boarded the ship with. Doctors were second on the list of 'people not to fuck with'; the ship's cook was the first. It had nearly driven him crazy with worry to leave Shepard there, but he didn't want to interfere with her treatment either, on top of irritating the ship's doctor and cook simultaneously by pacing around the area. Sometimes he thought it was a conspiracy to keep gawkers away from the med bay, having Gardner standing sentinel just outside.

With this in mind, he'd gone down to the ship's small gymnasium and took his frustrations out on the nearest punching bag. He'd been pummeling it for a good half hour, making the supporting chain creak ominously, when EDI interrupted.

"Mr. Vakarian, you asked to be notified when the Commander has exited the med bay. She is headed to her cabin."

Garrus stopped his exhausting work out and stretched out his bad shoulder, breathing heavily. "Thank you EDI."

He paused and thought over what to do now. Chakwas wouldn't have let her out if her injuries were severe, but then Shepard wouldn't have stayed there a moment longer than she had to. Her cybernetics healed her wounds at dizzying speeds, but surely she was still injured at the moment. The last thing Garrus needed today was to be exposed to an injured unmated female that held his affections. His aggression levels would skyrocket with the need to protect her, and on a tiny ship with no one to fight, that was a recipe for disaster.

Shaking his head and vocalizing his frustration, Garrus went back to punching the hapless bag. Better to work himself to exhaustion, and get a good night's sleep before seeing her. Tomorrow she'd be healed. He was proud of his self-control and restraint, but also disgusted with how territorial he felt towards her. She didn't belong to him. He didn't deserve her.

Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow he'd make sure she was ok.


	9. Chapter 9

Shepard was almost out of her mind with boredom and nerves. It had been roughly 15 hours since she'd been 'resting' in her quarters, and she was certain at this point that it would kill her.

She'd already slept, stretched her injured shoulder out, as per the instructions Chakwas left in her messages, written and rewritten a report about her horrible failure to command the most recent mission, and had pampered herself in every way she could possibly think of. Though her repitiore in that department was admittedly limited to taking the time to shave her legs, and moisturizing her skin.

She found herself in the unfathomable position of standing in the middle of her quarters with nothing to do.

Feeling mildly guilty to have so much free time, she dug out a bottle of Asari wine from the back of her cabinets. Snagging one of her few wine glasses, and feeling mildly proud of herself for not being a completely uncivilized soldier, she poured herself a heavy portion.

Carrying said glass, Shepard sat heavily on her couch, and got out her data pad, cycling through books until she came to one she'd picked up on the Citadel recently. Taking a soothing sip of wine, she settled in to read, tucking her legs up under her body to keep her toes warm.

Her alone time was almost predictably interrupted by a chime at her door almost an hour later.

Ridiculously grateful for the interruption, Shepard strode to the door, on the alert for a pressing need to return to duty. She opened it to find Garrus looking startled to have the door opened so quickly.

"Oh, Commander. I... sorry, I thought I'd check up on you. I'd heard you were ordered to rest, and I thought you might need rescui.."

He was rudely interrupted by Shepard grabbing his arm and dragging him inside. "Garrus! You have NO idea how good it is to see you. I was close to listening to Batarian Opera just to pass the time! Can you imagine? Here, sit, stay a while."

She'd dragged him to her couch, and resumed her own spot while snagging her wine glass on the way. Shepard watched him warily sit like he expected mech hounds to pounce on him at any moment. She felt a brief pang of guilt over the fact that she'd clearly not made an effort to put her crew at ease with her if he couldn't sit on the couch with her and feel comfortable.

After sitting, Garrus cleared his throat and ventured "Actually, I was wanting to ask how you were doing. And I also wanted to ask you about what happened on the mission. I am worried that I did something wrong. I mean, you were looking at me when you turned".

She watched his mandibles flutter miserably as he admitted the last part, which made her gut clench even worse over the situation. Of course Garrus wouldn't blame her. He looked up to her so much; thought she could do no wrong. Shepard had always wondered why he had taken her death hardest of all of her old crew, practically committing suicide in her absence. This was all so screwed up. And it was also all her fault.

Shepard looked down into her glass of wine, feeling like she could perhaps find her dignity and discretion swirling in its depths. Not seeing any salvation at hand, she put it down before explaining herself.

"Garrus, I'm sorry. It was my fault. I thought I heard you being attacked, I should have relied on the com, not just reacted on instinct." She opened her mouth to recriminate her own actions more, but was stopped short by a warm taloned hand on her uninjured shoulder and a sub harmonic thrum of concern from her Turian friend.

He said in a tight and concerned voice "No Shepard, please don't blame yourself."

She was shocked into muteness by his touch, and just sat there like a fool, staring into the winter sky held within his eyes. The thrum of her heart sang loudly in her ears, drowning out everything else but the warm pressure on her shoulder. She instinctually leaned forward, which caused his expression to shift from concern to surprise. Then his face shifted to an expression she'd never seen before.

Shepard came to her senses, and pulled back, already mentally reprimanding herself. Garrus was one of her crew, all of this was incredibly wrong of her, and...

His sub vocals throbbed and hit her like a tide, pulling air from her lungs and drawing at her most innermost places.

She looked up at him, eyes wide and wondering if he'd done it on purpose. "Garrus?"

He looked at her with surprise, then his eyelids lowered to give her an intense look-over. " Everything I've read has stated that humans don't react to vocals like Turians, but... you felt that didn't you?"

She was lost without the glass to clutch onto, and she very deliberately placed her hands on her knees, swallowing hard. She couldn't deny it, not with her nipples pebbling under her uniform at the continued pulse of velvety sound wearing at her defenses. The situation was getting out of hand. All she could do now was to confess to the implant, and hope he didn't notice how aroused she was.

Shepard took a ragged breath to calm herself. "I... the council gave me an implant to extend range of hearing. I've always found your voice to be beautiful, but now... now it's ..." She shook her head, unable to continue under even admitting that much.

The sub vocal throb seemed to strangle off, and Garrus took a shaky breath in. "I'm sorry. I've been horribly inappropriate. Even if I thought you couldn't hear my ... it won't happen again." He stood as if to leave.

Shepard's eyes flew up to meet his, and her cheeks stained red at the situation. Her body was instantly mourning the loss of that wonderful sub tone. She shifted uncomfortably, then said in a voice so soft as to be barely heard: "Please don't stop".


	10. Chapter 10

Yar me mateys, thar be smut here! Turn back now to save yourselves.

#######################

Garrus' mandibles slackened with surprise, looking at her with disbelief. "Commander?"

Shepard winced, then got up and paced nervously in front of the tank. She ran her hand through her tightly queued hair, until her fingers ran into the forbidding barrier of the immaculately twisted bun. She knew that she wasn't maintaining her strict control of herself, and that her actions could lead to terrible consequences here. But she almost felt like she was outside of herself, watching herself take a crazy and risky action she normally wouldn't dream of.

"I'm sorry if this isn't welcome, Garrus. But, God help me, hearing your voice like that is amazing... addicting. "

She turned to the sight of him still looking slack-jawed with surprise, but that only lasted a moment. His eyes seemed to spark with some inner fire, and he surged off the couch in an economical coil of motion. Before she could say anything further, he was_ there _in front of her, and her back was awash in the cool glass of the tank behind her.

He was growling in low pulses that made her stare in breathless wonder into a suddenly intense arctic gaze.

She opened her mouth to ask what he was doing when he buried his face into her neck, and growled deeply into the flesh there. Her body shuddered and bowed against her better judgment's will.

That seemed to be all the signal he needed, as he extended his tongue and started to caress her throat with sandpaper strokes, and gentle yet sharp nips. It drove her crazy. She'd never had a lover who took advantage of that sensitive swath of skin from just behind her ear to the top of her shoulder. It invariably gave her goose bumps, and further hardened her nipples, making them ache.

Shepard gasped and put her hand around the back of his head on instinct. She noticed immediately when he stilled, and the timbre of his growl shifted. Going on a hunch, she gently explored the softer skin just behind his fringe. Garrus stiffened under the explorations, and gave a guttural pulse of sound chased by a gasp as she extended her exploration to the underside of one of the spikes. He managed to say in a strained tone "Shepard... if you want me to go, please say it. I can't... control myself if you keep doing that. I've wanted...I"

Shepard shook her head to stop him and very deliberately reached up to slide her fingers along the underside of his fringe again. He shuddered and throbbed another sub vocal of pleasure, making her even wetter as the sound travelled from his chest into hers.

Her triumph was short lived as Garrus seemed to lose an edge of control from her actions. He set to pulling the front lapel of her uniform, shearing off the gold buttons and letting them musically chime to the floor. She in turn yanked at his civvy shirt until the metallic snaps gave and parted, revealing his plates underneath.

If they'd been any less ensnared by the moment, they'd probably have each paused at their respective alien anatomy. However, Garrus just lowered his head again and put his long Turian tongue to good use, exploring her collarbones. Shepard could only inanely wonder if muscles and bones close to the skin were erogenous zones for Turian females as she pulled Garrus' shirt the rest of the way off of his body.

He confirmed her theory by breathlessly whispering against her skin "Spirits... you're so exposed. I don't even have to do anything and you're ...you're _there_ right in front of me." He groaned in all his voices and tugged at her pants, making her grateful there were no buttons there for him to shear.

She was completely seduced by his obvious arousal. It was so hard for her to lose herself in the moment during her past sexual encounters, because she worried about her partners' enjoyment. Their arousal was her arousal. Maybe it wasn't fair, but the human ego was generally too fragile for her sexual needs. It was like a bucket of ice when her partners withdrew and worried about themselves, the situation, their erection... whatever. It was nonsense, and a waste of time that could be spent rubbing themselves against each other, straining for release. She was a straightforward kind of woman.

It was different with Garrus. He was vital, and he was not stopping.

Once she managed to get his shirt off, she pulled back from his questing tongue for a moment to admire his torso. Thick plates with a metallic sheen covered his chest and arms, but as she watched, she noticed them shiver as he took a breath. Intrigued, she gently ran a finger under the edge of the one on his right shoulder. He shuddered at the touch, and the plate relaxed and shifted, exposing more tender skin just beneath. She shouldn't have been surprised that the plates could be shifted, but she was. Shepard realized with a start that she was doing the equivalent of _really_ touching under the clothes with Garrus.

Garrus seemed spurred by her exploration of his body, and dipped his tongue lower. He froze when she drew in breath sharply from his tongue passing over her left nipple, but seemed to deduce that he'd done a good thing when she frantically tugged at his fringe. With a dark rumble, he laved it again.

It was excruciating. The rough texture of his tongue dragged across the swollen peak, and strung her along the edge of too much and not enough. When she gave a half gasped cry, he growled in pleasure and switched to her other nipple. It too was treated to a sweet yet harsh laving, before he experimentally grazed it with his teeth. Sharp as they were, the pinprick of pleasure/pain had her arching, and her core clenching. "G...garrus!"

Garrus responded to her plea by taking his talon to her pants, slipping one in and dragging it along the seam with a wet-sounding obscene rip. The destruction caught her panties as well, and she was bare to his scrutiny as the rent fabric fell to the floor.

His intense gaze swept her body, and suddenly he froze again as he caught sight of her sex, swollen from his attention to her nipples. His sub vocals did a stuttering staccato skid, and he said brokenly "You're...I didn't even... oh spirits Shepard. How do human males even go about daily life, knowing their women are open and bare?"

Shepard didn't have an answer, other than pulling at the fastenings of his pants, and pushing them off his sharp small hips. She blinked at the sight of the plates covering even his lower body, temporarily stymied.

However, upon closer inspection, she saw his plates were off-centered over his groin and slightly pushed outwards. She grinned at her discovery, and reasoned that if one set of plates could move to expose more tender parts, then these could potentially move too.

With a tentative questing finger, she gently explored the edges of said plates. Garrus buried his head in her neck again, and groaned. "Shepard."

Her suspicions were proven correct when the plates relaxed under her attention, and his slick manhood pushed out, filling her hand. It wasn't as long as she expected, but it had a delicious girth, and seemed to be self-lubricating. Her hand slicked up and down his length experimentally, causing him to rumble plaintively and grab her wrist.

He seemed driven beyond words, and only let go of her wrist to pull himself up to align his body with hers, though they still were pressed against the wall. She helped make up for the height difference by hooking her legs up on his angular hips, then marveled at how she'd never noticed that they were perfect for this particular position.

Garrus brushed his member against her folds, making them both shudder. He stopped for a moment, visibly taking control of himself, and holding piercing eye contact before carefully pressing forward.

Shepard didn't want him careful and slow, and leaned forward to nip the space his shoulder plate had exposed on his neck earlier. Garrus momentarily stiffened at the bite, then flanged a deep, almost mournful note before pressing desperately forward, burying himself inside her.

They both shuddered; Shepard at the feel of the girth of him stretching her, and Garrus at the soft silken vice that seemed to give him whatever he asked for. The combination was heady for the both of them. The moment, however, was broken when Shepard moved her hips, silently asking for more.

Garrus responded in full, and pushed forward into that sweet pliant fleshed that pulsed and flexed around him. At first they both tried to move in different rhythms, but quickly adjusted and found one that worked for the both of them. It was a deep, rolling, and methodical motion that hit both of their pleasure spots. In the saner parts of Garrus' brain, he marveled at the color creeping up Shepard's neck as she became more and more tense under the thrusts.

That was his last coherent thought as he drove into her, shifting his hips in a different direction when he noticed that she had a pleasure spot opposite of Turian females. Her higher and higher pitched cries spoke to the most primal parts of his soul as he thrust over and over the spot that forced such music from her.

Suddenly, Shepard's eyes slammed shut and she arched in a perfect bow of pleasure. Her inner muscles clamped down mercilessly on Garrus, and he gasped before thrusting raggedly several more times. His voice joined hers, and his sub-vocals trembled with fragile perfection. She felt the hot rush of his seed filling her further, causing her pleasure to sharpen until almost the point of pain.

They both nearly collapsed as pleasure suddenly cut its puppeteer strings. Garrus managed to save them from ignominy by bracing a hand against the bulkhead and locking his knees.

Garrus eased off to the side, and enjoyed the sensation of Shepard's fast breaths fanning across his mandibles.

"Damn... why did we wait this long?"

He chuckled at her, and enjoyed the sensation of her amazingly flexible body molding to his arms. "I have no idea." Garrus cupped her behind and walked them the few short steps to the bed, easing her down onto her back and following on top.

Once on the bed, Shepard stretched luxuriously before shifting to unwrap her legs from his waist. Only...

Garrus' sub vocals made a discordant jarring note as she tugged against his buried member. "Wait, I'm still... I mean..."

She watched in fascination as a blue-purple flush climbed his throat around his relaxed plates. Then she realized that they might be running into their first issue with xeno-relations. Shepard looked down and experimentally flexed her hips, causing him to groan. Yep, he was still inside. Tight inside, in fact.

Raising eyebrows at him, she returned her gaze to his, and asked calmly "What's happening?"

Garrus' blush extended further, brushing his jaw, as he said almost plaintively, "I uh... I'm filling you. Human males don't do this?"

Shepard's eyes widened, and as she mentally shifted her attention to the place where they were joined, she could feel him pulse, and a warm rush of seed filling her again, as if they were mid-orgasm. She was so used to sex being over after the male orgasm that she hadn't even noticed... he was still coming.

She flushed, then couldn't help her moan at the next pulse. It was only in her most private self-reflection that she'd ever admitted that being filled with her partner's seed really aroused her. It was always over so quickly, and she was never allowed to luxuriate in the hot pulses that filled her more and more, stretching her walls.

Shepard said breathlessly, "No, they usually leave immediat... oh god, are you getting bigger?"

Garrus nodded, looking a mix between uncertain and aroused. "Yes. I'm sorry, it never occurred to me that it didn't work this way for humans."

Shepard closed her eyes and shifted her hips helplessly as his member swelled, and he pumped yet more hot semen into her. She arched, helpless and open to however much he could give her, and loving it. Garrus groaned at her motion, but had enough wherewithal to raggedly ask, "What would make you feel good?"

She could barely speak, she was so focused on the tight ache in her core. Shepard shifted her hips again, and said breathlessly "T...touch me. Touch me here." She took hold of his hand and laid it flat against the apex of her sex, shivering as his talons brushed sensuously under her belly button. The thick large pad of his thumb teased the hood of her clitoris, making her stiffen and bite her bottom lip. He rumbled deliciously, like the murmurs of an oncoming storm, then gently experimented with moving his finger pads over her flesh.

Her reaction was instant, as her muscles drew tight and her sex clenched around him, making him gasp and helplessly thrust into her again. Like a self fulfilling prophecy, this in turn caused Shephard to squirm in pleasure from being so thoroughly filled. His gentle circular exploration of her keenly sensitive bud pushed her over the edge, and she bowed again. Garrus was left gasping and keening as her muscles clamped down on him like a sweet silken torture device, wringing another orgasm from him. "Shepard!"

They collapsed again, breathing like they'd run leagues with armor on. Garrus deliriously wondered how he never knew that human women could orgasm multiple times, and if he'd die from it. When Shepard unconsciously moved her hips again, he managed a strangled grunt before pleading in both voices: "Please, just sit still for a moment and I should be able to... get out. Spirits, I don't think I can see straight."

Jade stilled as directed, then looked up at her new lover with a crooked grin. "Sorry. I don't want to cause an interspecies incident."

He groaned at the terrible joke, then looked at her piercingly for a moment before lowering his forehead to hers. Jade was just about to ask what he was doing when a soothing and somehow sweet thrum washed over her. She relaxed under it, mesmerized as they held each other in what could only be the Turian equivalent of cuddling. She was so busy listening to him that it seemed like no time passed at all before he softened enough to slip out of her, making her groan as the ache between her legs eased. Jade hadn't felt so good and relaxed in a long time. This was her final thought before she drifted off into a peaceful sleep, swept away by his thrumming purr.


	11. Chapter 11

Garrus felt Shepard relax bonelessly under him, and opened his eyes to the sight of her peaceful sleeping expression. His purr stuttered with guilt momentarily when he realized what he had done just moments before. When Shepard stirred at the loss of his voice, he started vocalizing again for her, which she immediately responded to by relaxing again. The guilt didn't lessen, however, as he eased himself off her and to the side. He shouldn't have touched foreheads with her; that was reserved for intimate moments between a serious couple. Shepard hadn't protested the gesture, but then she probably didn't know it's significance. He was already screwing this up. He supposed at this point that he should be grateful he hadn't marked her too, his control was so shaky. After all these years of long stolen glances, and empty fantasies in the dark of the night, he could have sworn the universe unraveled and remade itself when she had told him to keep going. Even if this only happened once, he would spend the next decade or so getting embarrassingly hard just by remembering it.

For now, while she slept, Garrus could hold her and pretend that this would just be the first of many. Her form seemed so much more delicate when all of her immense energy and force of will laid nascent like this. He experimentally ran his talons through her hair, letting the pads of his fingers slide along the amazingly soft and supple mass. He'd heard that humans didn't have any feeling in their fringes, and Shepard's lack of response seemed to support this information. How strange she was. But how very dear.

He nuzzled into her neck again, inhaling her foreign scent that reminded him of the ocean: salty, with a wild undertone of the unknown. It was only a matter of moments before his satiated body pulled him under the waves of sleep to join her.

Shepard woke more slowly than usual, luxuriating in the sense of peace that cocooned her. She muzzily enjoyed the feel of the smooth sheets under her, her deliciously soft pillow, the comforting heat coming from the body next to her... what!?

Her mind reeling, she sat bolt upright, trying to get mentally up to speed, before focusing on the person next to her and clutching her sheet to her chest. Garrus woke at the disturbance and looked up, muzzy from sleep, but still surprised by her sudden movement. He looked at a loss for what to say, and eventually hazarded: "Uh... sorry"

Shepard stared at him for a long moment, then relaxed and scrubbed her face with her free hand. "No, I'm sorry. I'm not used to anyone being... that its... oh hell, Garrus, this is awkward."

He carefully sat up in bed as well, moving as if he was afraid she would spook. She had never seen him look so nervous as he tried to give her an out. "I can go Shepard. I shouldn't have presumed to stay the whole night." He rubbed a claw nervously over his fringe, something she'd never seen him do. It was unnerving to see how much this was affecting him.

Shepard arched her eyebrows at him and managed a wry smile at how hopeless the both of them were. "Please call me Jade. After last night, strict formality seems to not really be our thing."

She watched his face cycle from tight-mandible embarrassment, to slackened surprise, and then finally settling on what she could only interpret as shyness. He quietly said her name, as if to himself to see how it felt, then he looked up and nodded "Of course, Jade." It was at this point that he seemed to realize that she was still clutching the sheet, hiding her body from view. He seemed at a loss for something to say, expression unreasonable while she clutched the sheets even tighter. Shepard was never good at intimacy, or at feeling vulnerable, but before she could explain human shyness, he was getting out of the bed and reaching for his clothes. "I need to get going if I'm going to make it out before shift change and avoid getting noticed leaving your cabin by the entire crew."

Shepard watched him with a hooded gaze, face carefully kept expressionless while he pulled on his boots. She opened her mouth several times, but couldn't find anything to say. There was so much she didn't know about Turian culture. Was this a normal, leaving so quickly? Would asking him to stay break some sort of taboo? Indecision kept her a mute captive as he headed for the door and only briefly turned to give her a tight smile and duck of the head before stepping out.

As soon as the doors closed, Shepard put her head in her hands, letting the sheet fall. Christ, what had she done last night? Her common sense and good judgment had abandoned her, and she had pawed her good friend like a horny teenager. There was so many things wrong with the situation. For all she knew, Turians weren't allowed to deny a superior officer, and she had effectively rap... no, she couldn't go down that road. It would lead to madness. Scrubbing her eyes, she gritted her teeth to weather a sudden wave of self-doubt and guilt, then let out a shaky breath before forcing herself out of bed. She didn't have time to feel these things. There were missions to see to, and crew members to recruit.

Feelings were for the old Shepard.

Resolutely, she swung her legs out of the bed, and winced as she stood up. She was going to feel tender for several days, after last night. Resolutely ignoring her discomfort, she went over to her private message terminal and saw that the Illusive man wanted to talk to her about a colony named Horizon.

Once outside of the Commander's quarters, Garrus stopped in front of the elevator doors and stared bleakly at the controls. Spirits, what had he done? The way she had looked at him, uncomfortable and unable to say anything to him. As if she were ashamed of what they'd done. He felt like he'd painted graffiti on a national treasure, reducing Shepard to an uncertain speechless shell of herself. He would rather that she point a gun to his head and tell him to leave, than covering herself and staring at him in shock.

Acid roiled in his stomach. He hated himself in this moment almost as much as he had when he first heard of her death. He should have been there for her. Garrus had thought he was doing the right thing by leaving her side, letting her go without the burden of an overeager young Turian mooning after her.

But in the end, he wasn't there for her. That thought ate at his sanity in the dark of every night since he heard the news that felt like his gizzard had been torn out.

Closing his eyes and clenching his fists, Garrus tried to get control of himself before activating the elevator. He could do at least this for her. Pretend nothing had happened and be the perfect soldier. He owed her at least this. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the elevator and headed down to the battery.

Feelings were for the old Garrus, who hadn't failed his Commander.


	12. Chapter 12

The next few days were an exercise in absurdly awkward avoidance and silence for Shepard. She found herself avoiding the mess hall, skipping her rounds, and miserably disappointing herself in general. She felt like she should be above such banal drama, but couldn't muster the drive to avoid engaging in it.

At first Shepard had rationalized to herself that there were reports to look after, but those had eventually run out (which was a minor miracle that she was too distracted to fully appreciate). Then she'd moved on to cleaning and updating her guns and armor, which she reasoned that every commanding officer should do. You had to place your life on their functionality, after all. She'd even braved the monstrously noisy engine to check up on Tali's progress on the upgrades. But she was woefully underequipped to discuss quantum ezo manipulation with engineers, and eventually had to give that up once she exhausted her small pool of knowledge.

By the end of the third day, she found herself sitting at the bar in the observation lounge on the port side of the ship. Two drinks ago, she'd been lazily wondering for the millionth time why in the world Cerberus would bother with such a room. Now, she just stared into the depths of the sanity defyingly green drink she was holding, and generally tried to keep her mind from replaying her encounter with Garrus yet again. Each time it did, she had to cycle through so many emotions, that it was beginning to be exhausting. Everything was spiraling to ruin, even her friendships.

She leaned back and saluted the universe in general. "You win this round."

The glass was almost to her lips when she heard Samara's voice behind her: "Who wins?"

Shepard twisted on her seat and gave the Asari matriarch who had just entered the room a tip of the glass before knocking the drink back neatly and putting her glass down. "Nothing, what can I help you with?" She watched as Samara gave her one of her unknowable superior looks and slipped onto the seat next to her.

"Shepard, you are aware that you don't have to always offer to help as a conversation opener?" She reached for the big bottle of liquor that Shepard had been pouring out of, and tipped herself a glass as well before continuing: "In fact, when was the last time someone offered to help you?"

Alcohol fuzzed Shepard's brain enough that she was caught off balance by the sudden and frank question. "What? Where is this coming from?" She squinted suspiciously at the woman before reaching to take the bottle back. At the Asari's raised brow over the amount she was drinking, she mumbled defensively "I'm off duty." Why couldn't the universe let her be a useless barfly for even an hour? Killing a Reaper should give you that right. There should be a rule somewhere about it.

Samara relented and relinquished the bottle before leaning an elbow against the bar and running an appraising gaze over Shepard. "We are all becoming concerned for you. I know that we have not known each other long, but even I can tell that something is weighing upon you."

Shepard brought her head up sharply and felt shocked embarrassment at the insinuation that she was not performing her duties adequately. Before she could say anything, Samara interrupted her. "I am not criticizing your performance. I just feel that you have spent many an hour listening to my concerns; to all of our concerns. Yet you have no one to do the same for you. I would be honored to help, if I can."

All of the reasons why she should just send the woman on her way with a faked cheerful speech whirled in Shepard's mind, but in the end, she put her elbows up on the bar and sank her chin into her hands as she contemplated the nearby wall. Blowing out a breath, Shepard wondered where to start. The universe she saved calling her a terrorist sympathizer? Being half machine? Reapers? The enormity of everything that could be discussed temporarily overwhelmed her before she settled on the most currently pressing: Garrus.

She ventured slowly: "I... think I really screwed up a friendship." At Samara's patient nod, she licked her lips nervously and threw caution to the wind. "I did something I really shouldn't have, and now I don't know if he wants to stay friends, or if he never wants to speak to me again." Admitting even that much made her frown miserably at the surface of the bar, as if it held all the answers.

Samara regarded her a moment before taking the forgotten bottle out of Shepard's grasp, and pouring more for her. "Ah, I had wondered how long it would be before the two of you would stop circling one another. Did you... not enjoy it?"

Shepard goggled at the overly perceptive woman and felt her face heat in embarrassment "How... I mean... that's not... Oh hell." She picked up the shot glass and tossed it back again. She wasn't nearly drunk enough for talking about her sex life with such a self-assured and in-control matriarch.

Samara was smirking at her reaction, but gave her a kind look before topping her glass off again. "It is not completely obvious to most of the crew, but anyone with the ears for it can hear him pining after you anytime you get within 50 feet of one another. And I know that the both of you have a very old friendship. Only the threat of losing something so dear could wear upon a person such as yourself to this degree. I have never met anyone as difficult to rattle as you."

Stomach clenching from the conversation, Shepard mentally conceded the point, and asked the question that was burning into her mind for days. "Do you know much about Turians? Like what they think about liaisons between crewmembers of different ranks?" She felt like she was emotionally preparing to be punched by a Krogan, but resolved to face the consequences of her actions.

Samara's slim fingers idly turned her glass in circles on the bar as she took a moment before answering. "I am not as well informed as I'd like, but I do know that they are very understanding of the body's needs, even aboard military vessels. The higher ranks tend to be staffed by individuals who are mated already, but I have heard of pairings before."

Shepard let out a breath that had felt like it was full of jagged lead, feeling lighter in its absence. She asked almost shakily "So it's not offensive to them. Are subordinates allowed to decline a superior?"

Samara looked almost appalled at the idea, and sat up straighter. "Of course they are. They may be very militaristic, but they aren't barbarians."

She let the world be filled by the silent weight of her relief before quickly tossing back her last drink. Just knowing that she hadn't done something as awful as forcing Garrus made all the difference. Shepard very carefully stood up from her seat, not wanting to stumble all over the stoic woman next to her, and nodded gratefully to her. "Thank you. You've helped immensely".

Samara raised her eyebrow again, and looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before giving a regal nod "I don't feel like I've done much, but I am glad I could assist in some way."

Shepard felt her assessing gaze digging into her back the entire way out of the room, but she managed to keep her step steady as she keyed the elevator and prepared to turn in for the night. She had to get some rest. They'd be at the Horizon colony late tomorrow, and with how she'd been sleeping recently, she'd need all the time in bed she could get to be at her best.


	13. Chapter 13

Garrus sat mutely at the gunnery console, staring at the same senseless numbers that had been scrolling the world by for the last three days. He couldn't seem to focus on them long enough to enter any corrective computations, or even examine log reports of simulations. In short, he was useless.

Despite his earlier vow to tuck his emotions away and only faithfully serve, he was floundering. Every breath he took held the imagined scent of Shepard...no, Jade's pleasure. Every silence was an indrawn breath before her throaty groan. It was indecent, how much he was lost in the memory of that night. In fact, he wondered if he was slowly going mad from the torment of those glorious memories. Everything he touched after that night seemed pale and lackluster compared to the feel of her skin, so delicate he could feel her fearless heart through it.

Shaking his head, Garrus pinched the bridge of his short nose and whistled a groan in his second set of vocal chords. After a long moment, he reached down the console and resolutely focused. If he could only get through one set of algorithms...

The door chimed behind him and opened without ceremony. A light yet authoritative set of footsteps behind him heralded who was visited him. Shepard.

Turning around, he was vaguely proud of himself for not keeping his hands on the console to restrain himself. She was beautiful and aloof, fringe tightly controlled and chin raised in defiance of any rule the universe threw at her. She entered the room with an authority that slowly bled from her as uncertainty ate away at the vision of her presence. Arms crossed, she silently looked him over a moment, then nodded: "Garrus".

He felt like his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth, but he managed after a moment to nod back, and say carefully: "Shepard."

If he hadn't known her so long, he would have never noticed her slight wince at how he addressed her. He rushed to try to fill the awkward silence. "Will I get to be a part of the drop team for Horizon?" He truly hoped that she let him. Now that they had joined, the idea of her going into a dangerous situation without him was even more excruciating than before. If he was left behind, he might just get put into an airlock by the crew that had to suffer through his anxiety. At the very least, he would never live it down with Joker. That man could make anyone's life hell, if he put his mind to it.

After a long moment of a piercing assessment, Shepard nodded to him and said: "Yes, I need the best eyes down there." She seemed to come to a decision about something, and rested her hip against a crate near the door while she looked up at nothing in particular. "Actually, I came here to talk about more than the mission. I needed to ask you.."

Whatever she was about to say was abruptly cut off by Edie's voice: "Commander, we have entered Horizon's airspace. "

Shepard immediately stiffened and frowned. "Already? I didn't expect arrival until another 60 minutes".

Edie's tone seemed a bit put out as she responded: "Joker utilized several strands of warm dark matter. I advised against mixing a mass effect drive with sterile-neutrino streams, but he insisted it would work close to the galaxy epicenter..."

Shepard cut her off before she went into too much detail. "Ok... ok that's fine, notify Zaeed to assemble for disembarkment."

Edie's voice returned to her normal succinct nature as she responded: "Yes Commander. Logging you out."

Garrus saw the fine muscles along her jaw clench as Shepard briefly battled with the frustration of being interrupted. He desperately wanted to know what she had been about to ask, but then again, maybe he didn't want to know. He subconsciously trilled his awkward discomfort, but abruptly cut himself off as it made Shepard cut a curious look at him. It was going to take him a while to remember that she could hear him now.

Shepard righted herself from her lean against the crate, and crossed her arms before uncrossing them again and tugging the hem of her uniform. "Garrus, we have to get going, but before we do I need to ask; are we ok?"

The question took him aback. He thought if anyone should be asking this question, it should be him. He was the one who had pinned her against her own cabin wall. He stalled for time to get his thoughts unscrambled by clearing his throat and running his talons nervously over his fringe. He spoke slowly and haltingly, trying desperately not to screw this moment up. "Yes, of course. I mean, as long as you are ok, then I am... I mean we are." He internally winced, but stopped short of panicking when she visibly relaxed at his answer.

Looking more like her old self, she gave him a crisp nod. "Good. We can talk more after the mission." Without giving him much of a chance to respond, she was headed out of the battery. Garrus really could only stare after her a moment before gathering himself and picking up his gear to head out behind her.

The shuttle ride down to Horizon was much more quiet than the last one they had taken together. As much as it had been torture on her at the time, Shepard now found herself missing the quiet Turian humming. Zaeed was in one of his more somber moods, sullenly studying his boots. Shepard wondered, not for the first time, if he was all there mentally. Only battle seemed to make him happy, and the terrible scarring on his face told of a dark tale he had yet to share with her. She made a mental note to talk with him soon before settling in to study her boots until they set down.

After what felt like an eternity, the shuttle made the telltale deceleration and jolt of touchdown. The team made their usual smooth exit from the shuttle, with her at point. Shepard took a small moment to herself to savor a lungful of non-recycled air that was filled with the smell of green growing things and the wind. It had been so long since she'd been on a planet like this. Even if she threw the two years of her death out of consideration, Eden Prime had been her last encounter with such a lush environment. That felt like ages ago.

She snapped herself out of her thoughts and eyed the huge Collector ship clinging to the colony's communications tower in the distance. It looked like a huge ominous roach had had an illicit affair with an enormous leach. She activated her com-link with the ship. "We're groundside. Mordin, you sure those armor upgrades will protect us from the seeker swarms?"

The doctor's slightly annoyed voice answered back almost instantly: "Certainty impossible. But in limited numbers, should confuse detection, make you invisible to swarms. In theory."

In theory? That was reassuring.


	14. Chapter 14

The colony was eerily silent as they approached, like time had forgotten its existence and had tossed it aside like a forgotten toy. They moved cautiously, with Shepard at point and checking corners before waving the others forward behind her. The modifications to their armor did seem to work, as the swarms of insects had harmlessly buzzed by them each time their endless circling of the colony took them close to the group.

The silence didn't last long. Shepard was trying to move the team quickly through a dangerously open area when Collectors dropped in out of seemingly nowhere. Shepard heard Zaeed mutter in the com "'Course they have wings.", before she activated her cloak and took cover behind a nearby crate. They had never fought these creatures before, but she calmly readied her M-97 Mantis and went about finding out if they could function without their heads.

Cold satisfaction filled her as the first hideous creature slumped bonelessly to the ground after being divested of its skull. This is what she needed right now: just the simple clean calculus of kill or be killed. The familiar repetition of smoothly popping a heat sink in, activating her cloak, and settling into that quiet and almost infinite moment of aiming down the sights all served to calm and focus her. Even Garrus' strange occasional sub vocal satisfied purrs in the com as he eliminated a target seemed normal now to her. She was getting used to her implant faster than she thought.

They worked their way through the colony methodically and smoothly, barely taking any hits to their shields. Finding frozen colonists, whose terrified expressions ate at Shepard's conscience, only seemed to fuel their forward momentum and deadly aim. They had even found an abandoned particle beam heavy weapon, making Shepard feel downright optimistic about the outcome of the mission. She should have known that such luck couldn't last for long.

The team arrived at a choke point in the colony. What probably had been a small outdoor lunch area for the colonists now made Shepard nervous as prefab unit walls hemmed them on all sides. She pointed out positions for each man behind her to take before making a run for a crate in the middle of the grass about a fourth of a way in. She could have used her cloak, but that wouldn't trigger any traps that might lie in wait. Bullets zinged harmlessly off her shields seconds before she made it to her chosen cover, and she sat still for a few moments to let said shields recharge. She was about to get up and start sniping when a horrendous percussive blast of sound assaulted her ears. It was followed by a drawn out noise that she could only inanely equate with what a husk caught in a garbage disposal would sound like.

Shepard cloaked an looked around the corner of her cover. One of the Collectors was suspended in mid air, muscles straining as if it were having a seizure, while molten cracks of light speared through its carapace. The terrible sound suddenly stopped, and a strange mechanical voice announced: "Assuming direct control", before the Collector dropped to the ground. It was larger than before, and seemed twisted and unnatural. That was all she had time to notice before it raised its gun in her direction and shot the crate with ammo that knocked her back and left her scrambling to regain her cover before her cloak finished coming down.

Back to the crate, she jammed another heat sink in as she shouted into the com "He's got warp ammo! Watch it!".

Zaeed and Garrus made short work of that Collector after the warning, but it seemed no matter how many times they shot a glowy bastard, than another one would get 'possessed' and start slinging more warp ammo at them. By the third one, Shepard finally just instructed them to kill the regular Collectors and leave him for last so that he didn't have any more bodies to jump into. Things went much more smoothly after that adjustment, and they managed to make it to a locked garage on the other side of the choke point.

Once inside, Zaeed sat down to stoically address a wound on his leg from a bullet grazing him, while Garrus checked the facility for med gel and bullets. That left Shepard to deal with a near-hysterical mechanic when he stumbled out from behind nearby set of shipping containers. It was hard to get any information from him, and she had to remind herself several times that she'd probably accidentally break his neck if she smacked him while he raved about the Alliance and giant bugs killing everyone. Shepard was starting to mentally calculate just how much force she could safely apply to his face without killing him when he mentioned Kaidan.

Shepard felt like the breath was knocked out of her at the mention of his name. She realized with a sudden shock that she had somehow put the possibility of ever meeting him again out of her mind. It left her unprepared for this scenario. Would he expect to simply pick up where they left off before she'd died? The universe seemed to have a particularly dark sense of humor, so he just might. After all, dying had really put a crimp in her plans to let him down gently...

She was jolted out of her panicked thoughts when Garrus gently laid a hand on her shoulder. His eyes were a mix of uncertain and understanding as he reported in a hushed tone: "The survivor says that we can activate the Alliance's Guardian towers via a communications tower nearby. He won't come with us."

Shepard nodded and tried to cover how off balance she was by putting on her helmet. "Alright, tell him to lock the door behind us. Zaeed, let's move!"

The older man had finished tending to his leg and got up with a muttered grumble that Shepard pretended she couldn't hear well enough to understand. They stepped out to a large open courtyard rimmed by empty prefab living units. In the middle, amongst chaotically strewn crates, was the communications tower. Shepard heard the garage door rumble shut behind them with a grim finality before they proceeded forward.

They didn't get more than 10 steps when the familiar aggressively loud buzz of wings heralded the arrival of several Collectors. Shepard scanned for cover from gunfire when she heard a sound that seemed to freeze her gut. Husks. A lot of husks.


	15. Chapter 15

Edited: Just a few tweaks for coherancy. Nothing plot changing done.

Sweat trickled down Shepard's cheeks as she assessed the battlefield. Close combat units called for the use of shotguns, yet there were also ranged armed units that demanded equal priority. Her breath came harsh within her helmet, making her world seem small and filled with only air.

She ended up crouched in the bed of an old truck, sheltering behind it's slats and switching between her shotgun when husks swarmed close, then to her sniper rifle to take care of the Collectors that were firing constantly in a background of cacophonous noise. It was almost a symphony of violence, between the moans and coughs of the husks, and the high pitched whine of bullets, as they came within inches of taking her life. An extra moan and whine of sound was the only warning she got as Scions shambled out of hiding and unloaded their biotic blasts at her position. However, fortunately for her, the railings of the truck she sat in took the majority of the blast, moaning under the strain.

It turned into a monotonous repeat of motion for her: shotgun, reload, sniper rifle, reload, shotgun, punch. etc. The swarm seemed endless, and the moment of battle hung in the air like a plague swollen pustule; pregnant with deadly purpose. She knew from the com chatter and listening to their grunts and curses that Garrus and Zaeed were safe, entrenched as equally as she was, and mowing through the chaff. Her armor became coated in black and blue ichors as each enemy fell to her shots. It seemed like a nightmare, coated in the blood and mucus of her kills.

Shepard reloaded one of her last heat sinks, and readied herself to fire when an eerie silence filled the courtyard. The lack of husk moans, or the buzz of wings briefly disoriented her. It took a moment for her mind to register that there were no more enemies to kill for the moment, before she forced locked joints to unhinge and propel her outside of cover. With a voice that was rough as sandpaper, she activated the com and checked on her team. "Everyone alright?"

Garrus and Zaeed were equally breathless and rough-voiced when they replied "Roger, all targets eliminated".

Shepard closed her eyes and briefly savored Garrus' sub harmonic burr of relief before replying: "Ok, let's check out the communications tower".

They all met in front of the garage door, clutching their guns a little too tightly, and staring at each other a little too long. With only a moment to scan the area for threats, Shepard took point and proceeded forward to the tower. She paused only to pick up refills for ammo before reaching the communications relay proper, and only then lowered her weapon to key in the sequence to reach the Normandy.

"Joker, Edie, are you there?"

Edie responded rather quickly, but had bad news for their team. She needed time to upload the link to the Guardian guns. Precious time they didn't necessarily have. Not one to argue against bad odds, Shepard merely curtly acknowledged the need for time, and cut communications. She nodded to Zaeed to take cover in one of the abandoned pre-fab units, and for Garrus to hid behind a stack of tires near the tower, before settling back in the truck that had kept her safe in the prior wave. She figured that she could use it the beleaguered vehicle gave out, then find similar nearby cover.

That was until the huge, merciless profile of the vaguely insectile Praetorian hovered into view, briefly blotting out the weak sun, then began to fire upon them with a huge particle beam that slowly at away any cover they chose to hide behind. Shepard abandoned her tried and true truck to dive behind a stack of precarious tires once the vehicle burst into flames under the onslaught of the first beam attack. Said beam that the Praetorian fired gave off an immense and oppressive heat that threatened to burn the very air that she breathed, while simultaneously charging surfaces with a crackling electricity that raised all the hair on her body, under her suit. Shepard's stack of tires shimmered and burned as she switched out her weapons to the heavy particle gun that she had picked up earlier. She grimly waited until the hulking craft cycled through its preset limit (to avoid overheating), before ducking out of cover to fire a stream of heavy weapon fire at it. She could only briefly be grateful for the implant giving her the ability to listen to its weapons whining and pinging from overheat, giving her the confidence to leave cover and face it boldly where normally she would have waited precious seconds.

Before her strike, the huge insectile robot had focused its attentions on Zaeed, clearly turning and charging its weapons to strike a beam that would dissect the flimsy walls of the prefab unit that he hid within to thank him for the grenade he'd launched at it just moments before. Shepard disrupted these events with a slice of cold blue power. The Praetorian whistled and bellowed its anger at the damage ripped into a line up its side before sliding that terrible beam of destruction over to her position. Shepard had only a moment to vaguely register Garrus' flange of fear before her shield fried out in one shot from its murderous eye.

Her world turned white-hot for a moment before she rolled behind a set of metal crates near the relay tower that they were so desperately protecting. It was one, two, three excruciating seconds before the air cooled enough to breathe, and then Shepard threw herself around the crate and fired her heavy weapon as soon as she heard the Praetorian was in cool down. It shrieked under the assault in a way that assaulted her implant and temporarily rendered her deaf. Shepard flinched, but kept her heavy weapon trained steady on the metal creature until it shuddered and jetted to the side, away from her beam.

Shepard gritted her teeth, and hid back behind her crates as the construct jetted around and tried to flank her. Sweat threatened to obscure her vision as she crab-walked around the crates and simultaneously jammed in new battery sinks for her weapon. She resisted the futile instinct to wipe her brow through her helmet as she jerked around the edge of the crates and fired again.

The Praetorian shrieked at levels that threatened to drive Shepard insane, then shuddered in midair before tilting at an obscene angle and crashing to the ground with an implosion of shockwave and fire that almost blew her to her knees, even behind her cover. Shepard briefly worried about damage to the relay tower, then peeked out from behind the crates. The Praetorian had a few moments to smoke in disastrous enfeebled ruin before the relay tower pulsed and lit like a signal to the heavens.

Within moments, the huge ship that had loomed over their entire mission like a demonic leech was shot by the Guardian cannons. It shuddered and rippled under the multiple impacts before one by one, the landing legs let go from the colony tower, and it fell in awful slow motion. The impact of its crash to earth shook all of their sternums with intense clarity. Shepard fell to a knee with the cacophony of sound percussing her eardrum via the implant.

Thankfully, the influx of sound didn't last long, and her entire team was able to regain their feet in the wake of the violence. This peace did not, however, last long.

As the smoke of the Praetorian's crash cleared, the mechanic that they had abandoned earlier in the garage came stumbling forward and out into the courtyard towards them. Shepard was little in the mood for talking to civilians as she watched another ship clear the atmosphere and escape their efforts to save the colonists.

The surviving colonist briefly berated their efforts, but to be honest, Shepard didn't hear much of what he was saying. She watched the con trail of the ship that had escaped them, and everything seemed to be white noise after. She'd failed. Everyone's lives had been on the line, and she'd failed. The colonists were gone. Then Kaidan stepped through the smoke and ruin of their battlefield.

She watched as he approached, steps unsure as his face opened in wonder at the sight of her, alive and well. Then his expression closed and his brow beetled before he said in a guarded tone: "I thought you were dead, Shepard, we all did."

Her stomach dropped at his switch in tone. She busied herself in tucking her weapon away as her squad did the same, and came to her side to flank her as she faced the biggest mistake in her life (lives?).

Shepard tried to keep it light, despite her fading adrenaline, bruises from battle, and off-balance state: "It's been too long, Kaidan. How've you been?"

His expression seemed open and incredulous at her greeting. As if what she had just said was the last thing on earth he had expected. He seemed to vibrate with anger, then visibly closed down tight on his emotions before admitting with anguish: "I thought we had something, Shepard. Something real. I... I loved you."

His statement hit Shepard with the merciless force of past regrets and shame. She should have known that their one night of passion had meant more to him than it had to her. It was her job to know her crew, and it didn't take much talking to him to find out that he was an extremely sensitive person. She took a moment to suck in a fortifying breath, which gave her time to register Garrus' sudden intense throbbing growl through the com. The anger in his growl hit her with a wash of confusing emotions, and served to keep her off-balance. She tried to give Kaidan a chance to equalize, since she desperately needed the same: "I'm sorry Kaidan, I was clinically dead. It took two years to bring me back."

Kaidan stiffened at the explanation, then his expression became hooded as he regarded her like he'd never seen her before. It speared her heart more than she'd like to admit, to have someone who supposedly loved her to look at her in that way. He said in a guarded tone: "I did move on. At least, I thought I did. But now we've got reports about you and Cerberus."

Shepard's stomach churned at his accusing gaze, and the fact that he wasn't wrong. She was working for Cerberus. How could she explain her complicity with such a terrible organization when she didn't trust it herself? She tried to rationalize with him and hoped he wouldn't see the holes in her allegiance. "Not my choice. I spent the last two years in some kind of coma while Cerberus rebuilt me."

Things deteriorated from there. Kaidan's eyes became more wild and angry as they talked, and Shepard could tell that no matter what she said, he would see her as an evil revenant that was masquerading as her old self. She made one last attempt by asking him to not leave, and to join Normandy to help stop the Collectors. He had looked at her piercingly and only said "You've changed. But I still know where my loyalties lie. I'm an Alliance soldier. Always will be."

It was a blow to her stomach that she could barely murmur her goodbyes through. Her former lover, who had professed his love to her, saying that she was someone else now. Something else. It confirmed all her fears of how she was no longer herself after her resurrection, and left her numb and wanting inside. Was she still a person? There was no way of anchoring and knowing that she truly was. Kaidan's words tore through her and reduced her to self doubt and destructive introspection. Shepard's silence was oppressive and overwhelming on the way back to the Normandy. She didn't even have the presence of mind to check if her team followed her back the rendezvous point.

Who was she?


	16. Chapter 16

I'm really glad that everyone is liking the story so far! Thanks for the reviews and feedback!

* * *

The shuttle ride back was filled with excruciating silence for Garrus. Shepard had settled heavily onto the opposite metallic bench towards the back of the shuttle, and sat with her elbows on her knees while letting her helmet dangle idly between them. He knew that she was blaming herself for their inability to stop the secondary Collector ship, but he also knew that Kaidan had hurt her with his harsh words.

At the thought of him, Garrus' talons curved tightly and his angry rumble reverberated in the small space. Shepard twitched at the sound, but seemed pretty determined to pretend she hadn't heard him. He had known that Kaidan had wanted Shepard back on the Normandy 1, but he hadn't realized that they had been intimate. Just thinking about his unworthy hands skimming over Shepard's naked body had Garrus rumbling again in disgust and anger. It had taken all of his discipline to let that kyroc worm walk away.

As angry as he was, knowing Shepard was hurting and being unable to offer support was even more maddening to him. Zaeed's vaguely amused bitter smile as he cleaned his weapons on the nearby bench said that he was aware of the tension in the shuttle, and would be all ears to any conversation. Garrus clenched his talons in frustration again, when suddenly an idea struck him; the man couldn't hear ALL possible conversations. Feeling instantly better, he settled back into his armor to open up more space for his keelbone, lowered his eyelids to feign sleep, then softly exhaled the same sub harmonic purr he'd soothed her to sleep with on their fateful night together.

He watched her out of the corner of one slightly cracked eyelid as she stiffened in startlement, then gave him a disapproving frown. He couldn't keep his mandibles from flaring in mischievous amusement; a tell which he knew she understood. After a long moment of him not acknowledging her frown, she crossed her arms and settled back against the bulkhead as well. He watched as she fought the sound a few moments more, then relaxed and tucked her chin down to rest on the open rim of her armor. His chest filled with a deep warm contentment at successfully soothing his ma - no, he corrected himself - his commander.

He kept up his steady rumble throughout the shuttle's ascent, and only cut off once the jolt of the Normandy grabbing hold of the craft broke them all individually from their revere. He watched as Shepard snapped to full awareness, and the earlier heaviness settled on her shoulders again. She didn't say a word as she stood and waited for the Normandy's clamps to fasten onto the Hammerhead, so they could equalize the pressure in the hold and disembark. Garrus studied her profile, then made a decision: he needed to make sure they followed through with that talk she had mentioned before the mission. He could tell that she was in the sort of mood where she just wanted to be left alone, but he would give anything to forgo another three days of awkwardly avoiding each other.

Besides, he'd be damned if Kaidan got to leave such a heavy mark on her.

Predictably, Shepard exited the Hammerhead and bee-lined for the elevator, stripping off her gloves impatiently on her way. To the untrained eye, her stride was authoritative and spoke of not wanting to be bothered. If Garrus had been human, he may have had trouble keeping up with her smart clip. His long Turian legs, however, kept him in step with her with very little effort. He didn't say anything as they both stepped into the elevator. However, when Shepard keyed her destination as her cabin, then looked expectantly at him, he simply shrugged. She narrowed her eyes at him, and said in a tone laced with warning and fatigue: "I don't have time for that talk right now, Garrus."

He shifted to lean his armored shoulder against the wall, trying to both hide and control the way the authority in her tone made his pulse race. Now wasn't the time for that. They needed this talk. "We've both avoided it for too long already. I know now isn't the best time, but...". He trailed off as doubt started to crowd in. She'd said that they were ok before the mission, hadn't she?

Shepard rolled her shoulders as much as her armor would let her, then she sighed and nodded. "You're right." She activated the elevator and leaned back against the wall, unconsciously mirroring Garrus' posture as she studied him. Her gaze made him both uncomfortable from its intensity, and also excited. She probably had no idea that a prolonged direct gaze like that from a female of his species was a challenge for a male to impress her. Her lack of knowing did nothing to mitigate its impact on him. His neck muscles twitched as if from a life of their own, and he instinctively swiveled his head to the side, bringing his fringe in profile for her purview. He tried to cover his reaction by pretending to cough into his hand, but by the way she raised her eyebrows at him when he looked back up, he suspected that he'd failed. Thankfully, the universe seemed to take pity on his situation, and the elevator door opened before he had to explain himself.

His sense of relief only carried him to the entryway of her cabin, where his eyes were magnetically drawn to the fish tank. Garrus shot a quick covert look at Shepard, and saw that she was studiously avoiding looking at said tank on her way to the couch. She visibly decided to keep her armor on, eased carefully onto the couch (her cabin really didn't have anywhere else to sit) and waited for him to choose a seat as well. He had a moment of indecision, but then decided to take fate by the fringe and sat closer to her than he ever would have dared before. He knew by her posture that she was surprised by his choice.

Shepard put her hands on her knees and cleared her throat before starting. "First and foremost, I'd like to apologize about the chip. My orders were to wear it for a few days without the crew's knowledge, but looking back, I wish I had just been up front about it."

Garrus could tell that she felt badly about it, but he didn't fully understand the perceived sin and trilled a question at her. Surely she wasn't apologizing to him, a Turian, for following orders? He quickly followed up with active vocalization for clarity. "There's no reason for you to apologize to me. My people don't really have a lot of secrets in public conversation, especially since so many other species can hear us. It's why our society evolved into such a disciplined structure. " He shifted in his seat as he debated adding his next thought, then decided to throw caution to the wind. "And... I can't argue with the results."

He was immediately gratified to see that lovely blush he had admired before make a return to her cheeks. She looked down at her hands, then forged ahead again. "I also wanted to make certain that what happened between us was consensual. It didn't occur to me until after... we finished, that my rank and species gaps might have forced the issue." Her hands curled on her knees. She looked ill at the thought.

Garrus was shocked at her confession, and his stomach turned with sickened realization as to why she'd been so hesitant and uncomfortable that morning. It wasn't disgust at him, it was at herself. And he had probably only confirmed her fears by leaving so quickly, as if he couldn't wait to get away from her. He quickly shook his head in sharp negation. "Spirits no, Shepard. I'm sorry, I didn't realize what was bothering you. I've wanted this since..." Garrus broke off from that admission and ducked his head, not wanting to look like a moonstruck teen.

He suddenly felt her soft hand on his cheek as she gently shifted his face to make him meet her earnest inquiring gaze. "Since when?"

His mandible shivered against her palm as it tried to jitter from nerves. He took a breath, and admitted sheepishly: "Since practically the first time I fought by your side. You're so beautiful on the battlefield." And she was; achingly so. Garrus remembered when she had found him, close to death, on Omega. He'd gone for days without sleep and with very little food. When her deadly figure had crossed the bridge, gracefully killing the mercenaries in her path to him, he'd thought he actually **had** died, and that she was a spirit, taking the most beautiful form possible to escort him to the afterlife.

Garrus was prevented from further woolgathering by Shepard shifting closer to him, and gently pressing her lips to his free mandible. His eyes widened at the unexpected move, and from how amazingly soft they were. He'd thought before that her breasts were the softest thing he'd ever touched. He was gratified to learn that he'd been wrong.

No wonder humans were always pressing their lips to everything.


End file.
